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Investors with too many options?

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  • Dorn, Daniel

Abstract

During the last decade, markets for covered warrants (bank-issued options) have flourished in Europe and Asia. In these markets, investors often face a choice between many instruments that differ only slightly from each other. Based on retail trades in call options on the German DAX index, this paper documents substantial price dispersion across securities that are close substitutes. Moreover, investors generally fail to identify attractively priced options. The results suggest that the observed product proliferation imposes a substantial search cost on investors even though the products are homogenous and their pricing is well understood. The search cost is estimated to average 1% of the amount invested, the same order of magnitude as the average spread. JEL Classification: G11, G13, D83

Suggested Citation

  • Dorn, Daniel, 2010. "Investors with too many options?," Working Paper Series 1197, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20101197
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    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1197.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Oliver Entrop & Michael McKenzie & Marco Wilkens & Christoph Winkler, 2016. "The performance of individual investors in structured financial products," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 569-604, April.
    2. Baller, Stefanie & Entrop, Oliver & Schober, Alexander & Wilkens, Marco, 2017. "What drives performance in the speculative market of short-term exchange-traded retail products?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-26-17, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    3. Baller, Stefanie, 2017. "Risk taking in the market of speculative exchange-traded retail products: Do socio-economic factors matter?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-27-17, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    4. Chen, Rongda & Zhou, Hanxian & Jin, Chenglu & Liu, Jia, 2020. "Discount or premium? Pricing of structured products: An analysis of Chinese market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    investor behavior; OTC derivatives; price dispersion; search costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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